I turn up with a bunch of Sweet Williams which we both sniff as I walk in and make the same disappointed face to. "Maybe they'll start to smell later" I state, though why they should do that I have no idea, but it seemed to make both of us happier!
I am at Mums. I am able to walk here, now we live so close, but it seems I see less of her now than when I had to drive an hour to get here. Odd really, but maybe it has to do with avoiding the stepfather, which is possible now that I don't have to stay for a whole day.
It is lovely here in the sun. I get two deck chairs out of the garage, directed by Mum, who always despairs about 'the state of the garage'. Anyway, I arrange them in semi-shade on the grass before realising I'd arranged them around the fish...yes, that's right, not the 'fish pond' but just the fish - last nights leftovers left out for the birds! Blatantly crows don't eat fish skin, and who could blame them? The shiny skins glistened in the increasing heat of the day. I thought about removing them but then Mum decided that we could just move the chairs a bit further away, so we did but the skins kept distracting me in a disturbing way, like some sort of macabre art installation.
We had a little 'tour' of the garden. It did look lovely, with lots in bloom and potential for lots more. I miss my garden at these moments especially as so much of Mums garden was also in mine so would also have been in bloom now.
We looked at the new roses, which were perfectly manicured and the Iris - not so good this year - before hop skipping over the fish again to look at the Hostas.
"The slugs are eating them" squeals Mum.
"You can't kill the slugs!" I say, "they could have been someones mother" - perhaps I have spent too long at the Buddhist Centre recently.
"But they're eating all my lovely plants!" she says as though in pain.
"They can't help it" I say "that's just nature."
"I wish they'd just eat the weeds instead" she says exasperated.
"I don't think the slugs can tell the difference between a 'weed' and a 'proper' plant Mum"!
She starts a mass massacre of greenfly on some buds elsewhere in the garden and I look on mournfully having resisted rescuing my pansies recently from an infestation of white fly (reincarnated mothers!) but instead watched the white fly massacre my plants.
